Events from the year 1551 in art.

• Cristóvão Lopes succeeds his father Gregório Lopes as the royal painter of King John III of Portugal

• Pieter Aertsen – A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms
• Pietro Negroni – Madonna with Child in Glory and Saints Paul and Luke
• Titian – Philip II in Armour
• Caterina van Hemessen – Portrait of a Lady (approximate date; Bowes Museum)

• March 9 - Alessandro Alberti, Italian painter (died 1596)
• April 30 - Jacopo da Empoli, Italian Mannerist painter (died 1640)
• Luigi Benfatto, Italian painter, nephew of Paolo Veronese (died 1611)
• Jacopo Chimenti, Italian late-mannerist painter (died 1640)
• Camillo Procaccini, Italian painter, in 1571 a student in the Bolognese painters’ guild (died 1629)
• Tiburzio Vergelli, Italian sculptor and founder (died 1609)
• probable
  • 1551/1552: John de Critz, Flemish portrait painter active in England (died 1642)

• May 18 - Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter (born 1486)^[1]
• July - Adriaen Isenbrandt, Flemish Northern Renaissance painter (born 1480-1490)^[2]
• July 11 - Girolamo Genga, Italian painter and architect (born 1476)^[3]
• date unknown
  • Diego de Arroyo, Spanish miniature painter (born 1498)
  • Nicolas Chantereine, French sculptor and architect (born c.1485)
  • Étienne Peson, French "primitive" painter (born 1485)
  • Shin Saimdang, Korean genre works painter and calligraphist (born 1504)
  • Juan de Villoldo, Spanish religious painter (date of birth unknown)